PhotoSmart 850

PhotoSmart 850

HP PhotoSmart 850 Review

By
Movable Type Admin

Record Modes & Menu Options

This is the typical record screen when using the color LCD as the viewfinder. There is a
small status line at the top with the image quality, number of pictures remaining, flash
mode and battery condition.

Pressing the 4-way selector right or left activates the Exposure Compensation setting,
the results of which are seen on-screen as it visibly darkens or lightens.

This is the aperture priority record screen. You select the desired aperture and the
camera automatically selects the proper shutter speed. Shutter speed priority is the
inverse, you select the desired shutter speed and the camera automatically selects
the proper aperture.

The HP 850 can get as close as 3.9 inches in macro mode with the zoom at wide angle.
The optical zoom is limited to a maximum of 3.5x when in Macro focus mode.

After you reach the maximum optical zoom position, the camera begins stepping through the
digital zoom levels from 1.3x to 4.0x. Digital zoom can only be used when the color LCD is
enabled as all framing must be done on the screen. There is no menu option to lock out the
digital zoom. Digital zoom is not the same as optical zoom, it simply crops various sized
"chunks" of the frame and saves them as an image.

The PhotoSmart 850 captures up to 60-second video clips at 20 frames per second with audio
at 320 x 240 resolution. The zoom can be used while recording although you will hear
a certain amount of "motor noise" when you do zoom in or out.

Visitors of Steves can visit the stores below for real-time pricing and availability. You can also find hot, soon to expire online offers on a variety of cameras and accessories at our very own Camera Deals page.